Answers to Her Questions
by autumn midnights
Summary: After overhearing her mother have a nightmare, Lily Luna becomes curious about the Second Wizarding War. Dominique's there to answer her questions. Lily&Dominique family. Not incest. Oneshot, complete.


_Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter._

_Author's Note: Written for the One Character Competition (I used the prompts explore, butterfly, and book), Creatures of Hogwarts Challenge/Competition (Unicorn - write something about children/innocence in general), and Hunger Games Fanfic Style Competition (I used the prompts "What are we going to do now?", fantastic, setting: Hogwarts, Molly Weasley, and sword)._

_This is set the May after the Epilogue. My Lily Luna was born in November, which makes her ten years old here._

* * *

Lily Luna Potter awoke to the sound of a scream.

She sat bolt upright, startled out of sleep by the noise. Climbing out of bed, she silently padded over to the thin wall that separated her room from her parents' bedroom, pressing her ear to it. Her heart pounded, and for a second she feared that something really terrible had happened, like that someone had broken in, but that worry disappeared when she heard her father's calm voice.

"Ginny, I'm here," he said. "It was just a dream."

"Oh, Merlin," Lily's mother gasped, a note of hysteria in her tone. Lily was tempted to go back to her bed and try to get back to sleep, pretending as though she had never heard anything, but curiosity kept her feet planted there, her ear against the wall.

"Do you need to talk about it?" asked Lily's father, his voice still calm.

"It was the Carrows - that terrible year..." She let the sentence trail off, taking a few deep breaths that Lily, listening though the wall, could hear clearly. "I'll be fine. What are we going to do now? Do you think Lily woke up?"

There was a pause, as though Lily's father had shaken his head, and then he spoke. "I'm sure she's sleeping. She probably would have come in here if she woke up. We should try to get back to sleep - we have the memorial service tomorrow."

"You're right. I love you."

"Love you too," Lily's father replied, and then all was silent. Lily stepped away from the wall, careful to keep her footsteps silent as she walked across the room and climbed into her bed. She knew that she should try to get to sleep - tomorrow was a busy day, after all. Her parents always traveled up to Hogwarts for the Final Battle memorial service, bringing Lily along. All the Hogwarts students got the day off of school, and Lily would always take the opportunity to meet up with her older cousins, explore Hogwarts a little, and have a fantastic time, as the whole day was usually spent up there, and the memorial service was only two hours long.

Lily was kept awake, though, by thoughts of what had just happened. Her mother had never had a nightmare before - not one that made her wake up screaming, at least. What could be so horrible that Lily's mother, who was strong and practically fearless, could have screamed? She had referred to the Carrows and 'that terrible year', Lily knew.

She was sure that the Carrows were Death Eaters - even with her limited expanse of Second Wizarding War knowledge, she knew that. Her parents didn't like talking about the war with her, saying that she was too young. In her opinion, though, ten was not too young. She would be going to Hogwarts not this September, but next September - surely she was old enough to know some things about what had happened.

"That terrible year," Lily whispered, trying to make sense of the words. She had very little knowledge of the war, apart from the Final Battle - which she only knew about from the yearly memorial service - and that Voldemort had split up his soul and shoved the soul-pieces into objects, one of which was her father. People rarely talked about the war with Lily, her brothers, or her cousins, because they were, supposedly, too young.

Lily may have been too young to find out about the war from her parents. But she was old enough to know that she was going to Hogwarts for the memorial service the next day, and she might be able to find some answers there.

o0o0o0o0o

Around ten the next morning, Lily and her parents arrived at Hogwarts. They had Apparated to Hogsmeade and walked from there to the school. Lily would have despised the walk if it was not a nice day, but it was a perfect May day - the sun was shining, birds were chirping, and butterflies were flying around. She wasn't paying as much attention to the lovely day as she would have normally, though; her mind was almost entirely focused on her mission of finding out what her mother had been talking about.

She needed something to occupy her brain for a while, after all. Although Lily often got to visit Louis, Lucy, and Hugo - the other cousins who hadn't gone to Hogwarts yet - she never did anything that could be considered particularly exciting. It would be nice to do something like this - find out something she wasn't supposed to know, know something that her cousins (at least the ones close to her age) didn't know.

During the actual memorial service, Lily got distracted quite easily. She had been to every single one of these memorials, as far back as she could remember - every year on May second, they went, and heard the same things over and over. Sure, a different survivor spoke each time, but the words were always so similar, and Lily had to fight not to doze off. She twisted around in her seat, looking at the other people sitting in the first few rows - her aunts and uncles, Louis, Lucy, Hugo, Grandma Molly, Grandpa Arthur, Neville and his wife, Luna, and many other people whose faces she recognized but whose names she didn't know. She could see her brothers and older cousins sitting with all of the other Hogwarts students farther back - the first few rows were reserved for survivors and their under-Hogwarts-age children, and the rest was for Hogwarts students and whoever else happened to attend.

She saw Teddy Lupin, dressed in his trainee Auror robes, and although she was tempted to wave at him, she refrained. He was paying close attention, his eyes fixed on the woman speaking, just like he did every year. He actually had lost his parents at the Battle of Hogwarts, after all - this actually meant something to him.

In Lily's opinion, the memorial service couldn't get over quickly enough. When it finally ended, she was one of the first people to stand up. "I'm going to go find, er, Roxanne," she said to her mother, who simply nodded, looking lost in thought. It was a very realistic thing to say - Lily and Roxanne had always been relatively close despite the three-year age difference - and so it was obvious that Lily's mother thought nothing of it. Lily darted off, weaving through the crowd of people, most of whom had also stood up and began to walk around.

She paused when she got to the area where the Hogwarts students were sitting, and her eyes scanned the rows of students. What would be easier - going to the library, or asking one of her cousins? She was still thinking when fifth-year Ravenclaw Dominique rushed over to her. "Hi, Lily!" she said, enfolding the younger girl in a hug. "How are you?"

_Dominique. _That was the answer. Dominique was incredibly smart, and devoted to learning as much as she could, in typical Ravenclaw fashion. There was no way that she was clueless about the war; Dominique wasn't clueless about anything, or at least it seemed so to Lily. "Okay," Lily replied, looking around. "Can I ask you something? Somewhere where there isn't a thousand people around?"

"There isn't a thousand people," Dominique said, frowning slightly as she looked around, scanning the crowd as well. Unlike Lily, she was sure to see clearly - Dominique was a tall girl, who already towered over most of the Weasley-Potters.

"Okay, okay," Lily said before Dominique could start counting rows and estimating the true amount of people there. "I made that up. You know - there's just a lot. Now can I please ask you something in private?"

The older girl shrugged. "I suppose. But this better not be some scheme to prank me."

"I promise, it isn't," Lily said, already beginning to walk away from the crowd. Dominique followed the younger girl at a more sedate pace, until they finally reached the Black Lake.

"Ask away," Dominique said, folding her arms. She looked slightly impatient, and Lily wondered if Dominique had something else to do, or if she simply didn't want to cater to the whims of a ten-year-old. Her mind wandered for a moment, but then she got back on track.

For a second she hesitated, wondering if she actually should ask Dominique this. It was likely that Dominique knew things about the war, yes, but a small part of Lily wondered if she actually wanted to know. What if it was something really, really bad - or what if Dominique told Lily's parents, and Lily got in trouble for poking her nose where it didn't belong? This was shot down quickly, though, when Lily's curiosity - which had, indeed, gotten her in trouble on previous occasions - got the best of her. "Last night," she said slowly, "my mum woke up and she screamed. And I eavesdropped, and Dad said that it was just a dream, and Mum mentioned, er, 'the Carrows' and something about 'that terrible year'. I guess it has something to do with the war." She looked up at Dominique. "Do you know what she meant?"

Dominique paused for a moment, looking lost in thought. "Lily," she said finally, "I don't know if I should be telling you stories about the war - you're ten years old."

Lily made a face. "You're only almost-sixteen. And besides, you're a teenager - aren't teenagers supposed to be, um..." She thought for a second, before finally coming up with the word she was looking for. "Irresponsible and stuff?"

"Not all teenagers are irresponsible, Lily," Dominique said, suppressing a slight smile, but her face quickly turned back to completely serious and pensive. "This isn't really something for ten-year-old ears to hear, Lily. You're still young."

Lily sighed. "I'm not a little girl, Dom! I know how babies are made and everything, and I think that if I'm old enough to know that, then I'm old enough to know about the war." She didn't tell Dominique about how she had actually eavesdropped on her parents' conversation with James, and they hadn't actually had that talk with her quite yet. It wasn't as though Dominique knew, though, and she wasn't about to tell her older cousin that. It would make her seem even younger.

"Look," Dominique said, "Fine. You win. I'll tell you. But don't tell anyone, all right? I don't want Mum and Dad - or your mum and dad, for that matter - getting angry with me. Sit." She pointed to the grass, and Lily sank down into a cross-legged position, Dominique sitting primly across from her. "Do you know what Neville Longbottom did in the war?"

"He killed Voldemort's snake with the Sword of Gryffindor, which destroyed Voldemort's soul in it." Lily rattled off the answer.

"Well, yes, he did. But that school year - his seventh, your mum's sixth - he was the leader of Dumbledore's Army, along with your mum and Luna. You know what Dumbledore's Army is?"

She rolled her eyes in response. "Of course I do. Most of the people who died at the Final Battle were members of Dumbledore's Army. And they formed in Dad's fifth year because the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor that year was a bad teacher, and then they formed again in Mum's sixth year because Snape was Headmaster and they thought he was evil." Lily paused for breath. "But he wasn't."

"True. But they didn't just form in that year - the '97-'98 school year - because they thought Snape was evil. Snape was Headmaster, and there were two Death Eaters elected as professors. Alecto Carrow was the Muggle Studies professor, and Amycus Carrow was the Dark Arts professor."

"You mean Defense Against the Dark Arts," Lily said proudly, a thrill running through her - she had corrected Dominique! Dominique Weasley, prefect, perfect student, had been corrected by a ten-year-old. Lily practically felt like she wanted to contact the _Daily Prophet _and tell them.

The older girl shook her head. "No, I don't. He taught Dark Arts to the students - he was a Death Eater, there's no way in hell -" Dominique covered her mouth, looking embarrassed. "I mean, there's no way in heck that he would have taught defensive magic to the students." Lily smirked - it was usually Uncle Ron, Uncle George, or Roxanne that she caught swearing, not Dominique - and her cousin blushed. "Because Death Eaters were running the school - Snape was a Death Eater too, and as you said, they thought he was evil - the D.A. came back."

"What did the Carrows do that was so bad, though? Mum woke up screaming, and I mean, teaching Dark Arts to the students isn't nice, but it's not really, really evil. Dad said some of his Aurors know a bit of Dark magic."

Dominique ran a hand through her hair, looking like she didn't want to respond. When she finally opened her mouth, her words were measured and precise. "The Carrows...they enjoyed disciplining students. When a student received a detention from one of them - or from a prefect who was happy to report to the Carrows - the Carrows would always handle detention themselves. And they made Dolores Umbridge look like the nicest woman in the world - you know who she is, right?"

"Yeah. She made Dad write on his hand." Even after all those years, Lily's father's scar - which read 'I must not tell lies' - was still visible in some light. It had faded, yes, but it was noticeable, and Lily had pestered him about it until he had finally revealed what had happened in his fifth year. "So wait, the Carrows were worse?"

"Much worse. They...Lily, do you know what the Cruciatus Curse is?" Dominique didn't look like she wanted to speak the words, but she did anyway.

"It's an Unforgivable Curse," Lily said. Dominique gaped at her, and Lily explained. "A couple months ago, Dad came home from work, and he said that when they had tried to capture some Dark bloke, the bloke started shooting off Unforgivable Curses, and he mentioned that one of his Auror people was put under the Cruciatus Curse for a little while. So I kind of assumed. But I don't really know what it actually does."

"Oh. That makes sense." Dominique looked relieved. "I worried you had looked in the not-for-ten-year-olds section of Flourish and Blotts or something."

"If I had, I would know a lot more about the war than I do. So did the Carrows use the Cruciatus Curse on people who got detention?"

Dominique nodded. "They did, and they also got some students - namely sixth and seventh year Slytherins - to do it as well. It was a very bad year for those who were there. The Muggle-borns weren't allowed to attend Hogwarts, even those who had been going for years, but the Carrows still treated half-blood and pureblood students with disdain - or at least, the students who didn't appreciate the new way of running Hogwarts were treated poorly." Dominique shook her head. "I feel terrible for all of those people who went to Hogwarts that year. I wouldn't wish that on anybody."

"So what exactly is the Cruciatus Curse, then?"

Dominique sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. Another thing she didn't really want to tell Lily, then. "Pain," she said shortly. "The worst pain a person could ever feel. And the Carrows were doing that to students who got detention - meaning, for really stupid things in some cases." She shook her head. "Now please tell me you don't have any more war questions. It's freaking weird talking about this with you." This time she didn't correct herself, but Lily didn't smirk like she had the first time Dominique said a word she shouldn't. "Lily?" Dominique prompted when Lily didn't say anything.

"My mum? And Neville and Luna? The Carrows used the Cruciatus Curse on them?"

"Yes." The blonde girl shuddered. "So basically, your mum must have been dreaming about the worst year of her life, then. It's not that surprising - most people who lived through the Second Wizarding War have nightmares about it and flashbacks. It was a terrible time."

Lily nodded, feeling a little older than ten in that moment. "Dominique?"

"Yes, Lily?"

"Thanks for telling me. My mum and dad would never have talked about this stuff with me. They'd have thought I was too young to hear it."

"Well, you technically are," Dominique muttered. Louder, she said, "I think all of us need to hear it at some point. We need to know what they all went through to make everything safe for our generation, y'know? I mean, everything's perfect now, but it wasn't then, and sometimes I think people our age forget about that." She looked across the Black Lake, and Lily followed her gaze, taking in the simple beauty of the Hogwarts grounds. It was difficult to believe that on this day, several years ago, people no older than Dominique were fighting against Death Eaters to make the world a better place for whoever happened to come after them.

"Dominique?" Lily repeated.

"Yeah?"

"I think next year, I'm going to pay more attention at the memorial service and not almost fall asleep. I think those people who died deserve my attention for two hours, at least."

Dominique nodded. "Yeah. I think they do."


End file.
